Posts Tagged With: plant

This strange plant consists of four spidery stalks, long green tendrils, and an inverted bell-shaped cap filled with spores. The strange fungal basidirond is a deadly plant monster that feeds on mineral-rich moisture, be it runoff from cave walls or fresh blood. By ensuring a constant flow of nutritious moisture, canny cave dwellers can use basidironds as guardians for their lairs, although they must take care to avoid the plant’s hunting routes lest they become its latest victims.

A voracious, flesh-eating carnivore, the viper vine has a single enormous bloom arising from a thick, leafy tangle of snake-like vines. When the plant senses the approach of suitable prey through its sensitive, shallowly buried root system, it rises up like an agitated snake and unfurls its brightly colored bloom, an act that releases a cloud of mind-numbing pollen. While stories speaking of the plant’s ability to lure prey into its clutches by virtue of its swaying motion persist, this effect is in fact created by this invisible, odorless pollen cloud.Since viper vines gain nourishment through the consumption of creatures rather than through moisture and soil, they have developed rudimentary locomotion and are able to drag themselves along the ground with their tentacle-like root system. They even possess a form of rudimentary sentience, allowing them to not only discern differences in prey and make limited tactical decisions, but also to avoid creatures that are particularly large or dangerous looking. The area around the hunting grounds of these predators is often strewn with the remains of victims, and it is not unusual to find the rotting corpses of wild animals, ill-fated adventurers, and even giants in their immediate vicinity, along with a scattering of incidental treasure left behind by the plant’s victims.

This creature looks like a brown and greenish-brown mass with a cluster of nodules atop the main mass, though it is visible only when dead. A cluster of nodules atop the main mass serve as sensory organs. The creature feeds and attacks with a gaping maw lined with rows of teeth. Four stumpy legs support the creature and allow it to move about. This ambulatory fungus is naturally invisible, making it a feared predator among subterranean inhabitants.

A fungal creature is an animate plant with the appearance of a living creature. It grows from spores implanted in the dead body of a host creature, and takes on the host creature’s basic form and many of that creature’s abilities. It retains none of the memories of the creature it grew from, yet it instinctively knows how to use the abilities it inherited from its host. How exactly this is possible is a question that continues to befuddle scholars. The leading theory is that the spores’ precise modeling of their host succeeds in capturing some of the creature’s physiology—essentially copying its mind—but that for some reason the departure of the creature’s spirit or soul upon death prevents the spores from copying the memories as well. Fungal creatures breathe, but they do not eat or sleep in the typical manner.

Vegepygmies, also known as moldies, mold folk or mold men, were fungus creatures that lived in dark forests or underground, hunting for sustenance and spreading the spores from which they reproduced. They were spawned from dead humanoids or giants that were killed by a type of mold commonly known as russet mold.

Vegepygmies were organized in simple tribal units, led by their elders, whom outsiders referred to as “chiefs”. Chiefs bore spores which they could use to infect creatures the same way russet mold did. If a beast died infected by russet mold or a chief’s spores, then a bestial moldie, known as a “thorny”, would sprout instead. Vegepygmy tribes had good relations with myconids, shriekers, and violet fungi.

The volodnis, or pine folk, are a race of vengeful foresters who defend the ancient woods of Esperia against the incursions of others. They seek to expand the borders of their forest homelands, regardless of who might stand in their path, and dream of a day when all Esperia once again lies cloaked in unbroken green. They still strongly resemble their human forebears, although their skin is the deep olive-green of a pine needle, and their flesh is woody and tough. Clear sap runs through their veins instead of blood, and their hair grows in long, thick locks scaled like the bark of a young tree. Their eyes are a gleaming black, and they are tall and lean, with wide shoulders and long arms.

The volodni race hate the use of metal and only use natural growth materials. Most volodni worsip the god Silvanus and take on such classes as warriors, druid, ranger and sometimes cleric. The volodni race is more commonly found on the Para-elemental plane of Wood.

Though needlefolk superficially resemble humanoids, they are in fact mobile plants. Because they lack roots, needlefolk must take in water and nutrients through a structure that resembles a mouth. A needlefolk is a green/brown, hairless bipedal creature whose body is covered with short, stiff bristles (actually needlelike thorns). In human terms, its body is quite thin, even emaciated-looking. Its arms end in “hands” that sport vicious-looking claws (actually large, sturdy thorns). The coloration of the small leaves that cover the monster’s body mirrors that of the foliage around them: green in spring and summer, red and yellow in autumn, and brown in winter. Needlefolk are deciduous, so they drop their leaves and become dormant through the cold season. A dormant needlefolk resembles a tree with two branches and a faint outline of a face in the bark atop its body.

Needlefolk have no appreciable society or culture. They live in the forest with no more social organization than trees or shrubs would have. Their dietary needs are all satisfied by absorbing light and by eating dirt, decaying leaves, and the occasional small, dead forest animal.

Needlefolk are not tremendous fighters at close range; their preferred weapon is the small needles that cover their bodies.

The only thing that excites needlefolk is elves—they hate elves passionately.

Green warders guard the secrets of the elven woods, sending intruders stumbling randomly through the forest until the warders’ masters can deal with them as they please. Green warders look like tall elves made of bushes and leaves. They are quite light. Their limbs are of solid wood, and their arms are lined with large thorns that function as claws. When well maintained, green warders are pruned to resemble specific elven personages, or else they wear fanciful headdresses. When left to their own devices, green warders grow bushy and scraggly, a state they prefer, though they would not admit this. They have limited personalities and speak Elvish and at least a few words of Common.

Green warders attempt to avoid combat, using their abilities to raise alarms for other defenders while confusing intruders and causing them to sleep.

A greenvise is a larger, sturdier version of the venus flytrap,with a thick, green, trunklike stem and four sturdy tendrils that hang down like vines. When the creature opens its mouth, a mottled pink maw lined with toothlike thorns is revealed; when closed, the mouth structure resembles an ordinary leafy bush. A greenvise has small, tendrillike roots that it uses to move.

The greenvise sits quietly and attack by suprise in most cases but when threaten it can cast out a deadly acid fog.

The greenvise is found in the south regions of Esperia in warm forests or jungle.

The violet fungus is a plant creature found normally near shriekers. Violet fungi resemble large, purple fungi with tentacles. The violet fungus shares a symbiotic relationship with the shrieker in order to hunt. The shrieker emmits a high-pitched wail to lure prey, and when it comes, the violet fungus attacks with its tentacles.